by Kōji Suzuki
“I don’t know … Now listen, you. Are you sure you’re not coming at this with preconceptions? If you took any two incidents, you could find things in common if you looked hard enough. You’re saying they both died of a heart attack. So they must have been in a lot of pain. So she’s pulling at her hair, he’s struggling with his helmet … It actually sounds pretty normal to me.”
While he had to recognize that this was a possibility, Asakawa shook his head. He wasn’t going to be defeated so easily.
“But, sir, then it would be the chest that hurt. Why should they be tearing at their heads?”
“Now listen, you. Have you ever had a heart attack?”
“Well … no.”
“And have you asked a doctor about it?”
“About what?”
“About whether or not a person having a heart attack would tear at his head?”
Asakawa fell silent. He had, in fact, asked a doctor. The doctor had replied, I couldn’t rule it out. It was a wishy-washy answer. After all, the opposite sometimes happens. Sometimes when a person experiences a cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding in the cerebral membrane, they feel stomach discomfort at the same time as a headache.
“So it depends on the individual. When there’s a tough math problem, some people scratch their heads, some people smoke. Some people may even rub their bellies.” Oguri swiveled in his chair as he said this. “The point is, we can’t say anything at this stage, can we? We don’t have space for that stuff. You know, because of what happened two years ago. We won’t touch this kind of thing, not lightly. If we felt fine about speculating in print, then we could, of course.”
Maybe so. Maybe it was just like his editor said, it was a freak coincidence. But still—in the end the doctor had just shaken his head. He’d pressed the doctor—do heart attack victims really pull out their own hair? And the doctor had just frowned and said, Hmmm. His look said it all: none of the patients he’d seen had acted like that.
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
At the moment there was nothing to do but retreat meekly. If he couldn’t discover a more objective connection between the two incidents, it would be difficult to convince his editor. Asakawa promised himself that if he couldn’t dig up anything, he’d just shut up and leave it alone.
4
Asakawa hung up the phone and stayed there like that for a while, motionless, his hand still on the receiver. The sound of his own unnecessarily excited voice, hanging on the other person’s reaction, still echoed in his ears. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be able to do this. The person on the other end had taken the phone from his secretary with a suitably pompous tone, but as he’d listened to Asakawa’s proposal the tone of his voice had softened somewhat. At first he’d probably thought Asakawa was calling about advertising. Then he’d done some quick calculating and realized the potential profit in having an article written profiling him.
The “Top Interview” series had begun running in September. The idea was to spotlight a CEO who had built up his company on his own, focusing on the obstacles he’d overcome and how. Considering that he’d actually succeeded in getting an appointment to do the interview, Asakawa should have been able to hang up the phone with a little more satisfaction. But something weighed on him. All he’d hear from this philistine were the same old corporate war stories, boasts about what a genius he was, how he’d seized his opportunities and clawed his way to the top … If Asakawa didn’t thank him and stand up to leave, the tales of valor would go on forever. He was sick of it. He detested whoever had come up with this project. He knew, all too well, that the magazine had to sell ad space to survive, and that this kind of article laid the necessary groundwork for that. But Asakawa himself didn’t much care if the company made money or lost it. All that mattered to him was whether or not the work was engaging. No matter how easy a job was physically, if it didn’t involve any imagination, it usually ended up exhausting you.
Asakawa headed for the archives on the fourth floor. He needed to do some background reading for the interview tomorrow, but more than that, there was something that was bothering him. The idea of an objective, causal relationship between those two incidents fascinated him. And then he remembered. He didn’t even know how to begin, but a certain question had come to him in the furtive moment that his mind had wrested free of the voice of the philistine.
Were these two inexplicable sudden deaths indeed the only ones that had occurred at 11 p.m. on September 5th?
If not—that is, if there had been other, similar, incidents—then the chances of them being a coincidence were practically nil. Asakawa decided to take a look at the newspapers from early September. Part of his job was reading the newspaper meticulously. But in his case, he usually read only the headlines in the local news section, so there was more than just a chance that there was something he’d missed. He had a feeling there had been. He had the feeling that about a month ago, in the corner of a page in the local news section, he’d seen an odd headline. It had been a small article, on the lower left-hand page … All he remembered was where it had appeared. He remembered reading the headline and thinking, hey, but then someone from the desk had called to him, and he’d gotten so distracted by work that he never actually read the article.
With the buoyancy of a child on a treasure hunt, Asakawa began his search with the morning edition from September 6th. He was certain he’d find a clue. Reading month-old newspapers in the gloomy archives was giving him a sort of psychological uplift he never got from interviewing a philistine. Asakawa was much more cut out for this kind of thing than for running around on the beat dealing with people of all sorts.
The September 7th evening edition—that’s where the article was, in just the position he’d remembered it being. Squeezed into a corner by news of a shipwreck that had claimed 34 lives, the article took up even less space than he’d recalled. No wonder he had overlooked it. Asakawa took off his silver-rimmed glasses, buried his face in the newspaper, and pored over the article.
YOUNG COUPLE DEAD OF UNNATURAL CAUSES IN RENTAL CAR
At 6:15 a.m. on the 7th, a young man and woman were found dead in the front seats of a car on a vacant lot in Ashina, Yokosuka, along a prefectural road. The bodies were discovered by a truck driver who happened to pass by and who then reported the case to the Yokosuka police precinct.
From the car registration they were identified as a preparatory school student from Shibuya, Tokyo (age 19), and a private girls’ high school student from Isogo, Yokohama (age 17). The car had been rented from an agency in Shibuya two evenings previously by the preparatory school student.
At the time of discovery, the car was locked with the key in the ignition. The estimated time of death was sometime between late night on the 5th and the predawn hours of the 6th. Since the windows were rolled up, it is thought that the couple fell asleep and asphyxiated, but the possibility that they had taken an overdose of drugs in order to commit a love suicide has not been ruled out. The exact cause of death has not been determined. As of yet there is no suspicion of homicide.
This was all there was to the article, but Asakawa felt like he had a bite. First of all, the girl who died was seventeen and attended a private girls’ school in Yokohama, just like his niece Tomoko. The guy who rented the car was nineteen and a prep school student, just like the kid who died in front of Shinagawa Station. The estimated time of death was virtually identical. Cause of death unknown, too.
There had to be some connection among these four deaths. It couldn’t take too long to establish definitive commonalities. After all, Asakawa was on the inside of a major newsgathering organization—he wasn’t lacking for sources of information. He made a copy of the article and headed back to the editorial office. He felt like he’d just struck gold, and his pace quickened of its own accord. He could barely wait for the elevator.
The Yokosuka City Hall press club. Yoshino was sitting at his desk, his pen scurrying across a sheet of manuscript paper. As long as t
he expressway wasn’t crowded, you could make it here from the main office in Tokyo in an hour. Asakawa came up behind Yoshino and called his name.
“Hey, Yoshino.”
He hadn’t seen Yoshino in a year and a half.
“Huh? Hey, Asakawa. What brings you down to Yokosuka? Here, have a seat.”
Yoshino pulled up a chair toward the desk and urged Asakawa to sit. Yoshino hadn’t shaved, and it gave him a seedy look, but he could be surprisingly considerate toward others.
“You keeping busy?”
“You could say that.”
Yoshino and Asakawa had known each other when Asakawa was still in the local-news department, which Yoshino had entered three years ahead of him. Yoshino was thirty-five now.
“I called the Yokosuka office. That’s how I learned you were here.”
“Why? You need me for something?”
Asakawa handed him the copy he’d made of the article. Yoshino stared at it for an extraordinarily long time. Since he’d written the article himself, he should have been able to remember what it said just by looking at it. As it was, he sat there concentrating all his nerves on it, hand frozen halfway through the motion of putting a peanut in his mouth. It was as if he were chewing it: recalling what he’d written and digesting it.
“What about it?” Yoshino had assumed a serious expression.
“Nothing special. I just wanted to find out more details.”
Yoshino stood up. “All right. Let’s go next door and talk over a cup of tea or something.”
“Do you have time for this right now? Are you sure I’m not interrupting?”
“Not a problem. This is more interesting than what I was doing.”
There was a little cafe right next to City Hall where you could get coffee for two hundred yen a cup. Yoshino sat down and immediately turned to the counter and called out, “Two coffees.” Then, turning back to Asakawa, he hunched over, leaning close. “Okay, look, I’ve been on the local beat for 12 years now. I’ve seen a lot of things. But. Never have I come across anything as downright odd as this.”
Yoshino paused for a sip of water, then continued. “Now, Asakawa. This has got to be a fair trade of information. Why is someone from the main office looking into this?”
Asakawa wasn’t ready to tip his hand. He wanted to keep the scoop for himself. If an expert like Yoshino caught wind of it, in a heartbeat he’d chase and nab the prize for himself. Asakawa promptly came up with a lie.
“No special reason. My niece was a friend of the dead girl, and she keeps badgering me for information—you know, about the incident. So as long as I was down here …”
It was a poor lie. He thought he saw Yoshino’s eyes flash with suspicion, and he shrank back, unnerved.
“Really?”
“Yeah, well, she’s a high school student, right? It’s bad enough that her friend’s dead, but then there are the circumstances. She just keeps bugging me about it. I’m begging you. Give me details.”
“So, what do you want to know?”
“Did they ever decide on the cause of death?”
Yoshino shook his head. “Basically, they’re saying their hearts just stopped all of a sudden. They have no idea why.”
“How about the murder angle? Strangulation, for example.”
“Impossible. No bruise marks on the neck.”
“Drugs?”
“No traces in the autopsy.”
“In other words, the case hasn’t been solved.”
“Shit, no. No solving to be done. It isn’t a murder—it’s not even an incident, really. They died of some illness, or from some kind of accident, and that’s all there is to it. Period. There’s not even an investigation.”
It was a blunt way of putting it. Yoshino leaned back in his chair.
“So why haven’t they released the names of the deceased?”
“They’re minors. Plus, there’s the suspicion that it was a love suicide.”
At this point Yoshino suddenly smiled, as if he’d just remembered something, and he leaned forward again.
“You know, the guy? He had his jeans and his briefs down around his knees. The girl, too—her panties were pulled down to her knees.”
“So, you mean it was coitus interruptus?”
“I didn’t say they were doing it. They were just getting ready to do it. They were just getting ready to have a little fun and, bam! That’s when it happened,” Yoshino clapped his hands together for effect.
“When what happened?”
Yoshino was telling his story for maximum effect.
“Okay, Asakawa, level with me. You’ve got something. I mean, something that connects with this case. Right?”
Asakawa didn’t reply.
“I can keep a secret. I won’t steal your scoop, either. It’s just that I’m interested in this.”
Asakawa still remained silent.
“Are you gonna keep me hanging here in suspense?”
Should I tell … ? But I can’t. I mustn’t say anything yet. But lies aren’t working …
“Sorry, Yoshino. Could you wait just a little longer? I can’t tell you quite yet. But I will in two or three days. I promise.”
Disappointment clouded Yoshino’s face. “If you say so, pal …”
Asakawa gave him a pleading look, urging him to continue his story.
“Well, we’ve got to assume that something happened. A guy and a gal suffocate just when they’re getting ready to do it? That’s not even funny. I guess it’s possible that they’d taken poison earlier and it had only taken effect just then, but there were no traces. Sure, there are poisons that leave no trace, but you can’t figure on a couple of students getting their hands on something like that.”
Yoshino thought of the place where the car had been found. He’d actually gone there himself and still had a clear impression. The car was parked on an overgrown piece of vacant land in a little ravine just off the unpaved prefectural road that led from Ashina to Mt Okusu. Cars coming up the road could just catch the reflection of its taillights as they passed. It wasn’t hard to imagine why the prep school kid, who’d been driving, had chosen this place to park in. After nightfall hardly any cars used this road, and with the thick growth of trees providing cover, it made for a perfect hideaway for a penniless young couple.
“Then, you’ve got the guy with his head jammed up against the steering wheel and the side window. Meanwhile, the girl’s got her head buried between the passenger seat and the door. That’s how they died. I saw them being taken out of the car, with my own eyes. Each body came tumbling out the moment the doors were opened. It’s like at the moment of death some sort of force had been pushing them from the inside, didn’t stop when they died but kept pushing for thirty hours or so until the investigators opened the doors, and then burst out. Now, are you with me here? This car was a two-door, one of those where you can’t lock the doors with the key still inside. And the key was in the ignition, but the doors … well, you catch my drift. The car was completely sealed. It’s hard to imagine that any force from the outside could have affected them. And what kind of expression do you suppose they had on their dead faces? They were both scared shitless. Faces contorted with terror.”
Yoshino paused to catch his breath. There was a loud gulping sound. It wasn’t clear which of them had swallowed his saliva.
“Think about it. Suppose, just for the hell of it, that some fearsome beast had come out of the woods. They’d have been scared, and they would have huddled close to each other. Even if he hadn’t, the girl would absolutely have clung to him. After all, they were lovers. But instead, their backs were pressed up against the doors, as if they were trying to get as far away from each other as they could.”
Yoshino threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Beats the hell out of me.”
If it hadn’t been for the shipwreck in the waters off Yokosuka, the article might have been given more space. And if it had, there would have been a lot of readers who would
have enjoyed trying to solve the puzzle, playing detective. But … But. A consensus had spread, an atmosphere, among the investigators and everybody else who had been at the scene. They all thought more or less the same thing, and all of them were on the verge of blurting it out, but nobody actually did. That kind of consensus. Even though it was completely impossible for two young people to die of heart attacks at exactly the same moment, even though none of them really believed it, everybody told themselves the medical lie that it had happened just like that. It wasn’t that people refrained from saying anything out of fear of being laughed at for being unscientific. It was that they felt they’d be drawing unto themselves some unimaginable horror by admitting it. It was more convenient to indulge in the scientific explanation, no matter how unconvincing it was.
A chill ran up Asakawa’s spine and Yoshino’s simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, they were both thinking the same thing. The silence only confirmed the premonition which was welling up in each man’s breast. It’s not over—it’s only just started. No matter how much scientific knowledge they fill themselves with, on a very basic level, people believe in the existence of something that the laws of science can’t explain.
“When they were discovered … where were their hands?” Asakawa suddenly asked.
“On their heads. Or, well, it was more like they were covering their faces with their hands.”
“Were they by any chance pulling at their hair, like this?” Asakawa tugged at his own hair to demonstrate.
“Eh?”
“In other words, were they tearing at their heads, or pulling out their hair, or anything like that?”